Chapter 4 - Someone Inside the House
Nobody moved for half a second.
Then everyone moved at once.
The security chief grabbed his radio.
“Lock the house down.”
Two guards ran toward the hall.
I stared at the login alert.
“Can you identify the device?”
Grace leaned toward the screen.
“It says local network.”
My skin went cold.
Someone inside my home had tried to access Claire’s account.
The head of security spoke into his radio.
“Check every employee.”
“Kitchen.”
“Guest rooms.”
“Maintenance.”
“Garage.”
I suddenly thought of Noah.
I ran.
Grace was behind me.
We took the stairs two at a time.
Noah’s bedroom door was open.
His bed was empty.
“Noah!”
My voice echoed down the hall.
Grace ran toward the bathroom.
Empty.
I nearly stopped breathing.
Then a small voice came from inside the closet.
“Dad?”
I crossed the room and opened the door.
Noah was sitting behind a row of coats.
His knees were against his chest.
I dropped beside him.
“What happened?”
“A man came in.”
Grace crouched beside us.
“What man?”
“He had a hat.”
My pulse exploded.
“What did he want?”
“He asked where Miss Grace keeps her keys.”
Grace and I looked at each other.
“Did he touch you?”
Noah shook his head.
“I hid.”
“You did exactly right.”
He reached into his pajama pocket.
“He dropped this.”
Noah handed me a small black device.
Grace recognized it immediately.
“A flash drive.”
We took Noah downstairs with two security guards beside him.
By then, every employee had been assembled in the main hall.
One person was missing.
A maintenance contractor named Paul Reeves.
He had started working at the estate three weeks earlier.
Three weeks after Victoria convinced me we needed a new security modernization project.
My stomach turned.
Victoria had put someone inside my home.
Security footage showed Reeves entering Noah’s hallway fourteen minutes earlier.
Then cameras covering the east stairwell suddenly went dark.
“He knew where the blind spot was,” the security chief said.
“Find him.”
A search began across the property.
Grace plugged Noah’s flash drive into an isolated computer.
It contained three folders.
The first was labeled MEDICAL.
The second was labeled GUARDIANSHIP.
The third was labeled C.
I opened C.
Hundreds of files appeared.
Photographs.
Emails.
Scanned documents.
One video.
The date was the night Claire died.
I clicked it.
The footage came from a dashboard camera.
Claire’s car appeared ahead on a dark road.
Another vehicle followed closely behind.
A black sedan.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
Then the sedan accelerated.
It moved beside Claire.
It forced her toward the shoulder.
Grace covered her mouth.
The video ended seconds before the crash.
I stared at the screen.
“Whose camera recorded this?”
Grace checked the file properties.
Her face changed.
“What?”
“The dashcam belonged to Ethan.”
Silence swallowed the room.
My phone rang.
Ethan.
I answered.
“You want to accuse me of killing Claire?”
His voice was calm.
I looked at the video.
“You were following her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she stole something from me.”
I tightened my grip.
“What did she steal?”
Ethan laughed softly.
“The only evidence that can actually put me in prison.”
Then he added something worse.
“And if you found the flash drive, Daniel, you need to understand one thing.”
“What?”
May you like
“Paul didn’t drop it.”
“He left it for you.”
